Underneath

Underneath, the third full-length release from the French band Wildpath, seems to be widely considered to be archetypal Wildpath. In Underneath, Wildpath employs lavish, soaring, orchestral scores on top of your standard-fare heavy metal instruments (guitars, drums, keyboards, and the like).

Underneath’s lyrics are, for the most part, unapologetically affirming and positive, as best I can tell (more on that later). For example, “Dive” is a song of encouragement, prodding the listener to throw himself or herself into various endeavors (or perhaps life in general) in order to find his or her true potential. Even the songs with darker themes seem to end on a positive note. For example, “Buried Moon,” a song about a good-hearted witch being pursued by suspicious villagers, ends in the drowning suicide of our heroine, but from the depths she looks forward to an apparent reincarnation and triumph.

Wildpath’s musicians and songwriters are no slouches, and so the orchestral and metal instrumentals paint engaging, complex backgrounds on which the vocal story plays out. That story is primarily told by Marjolaine Bernard, Wildpath’s exemplary soprano vocalist. Marjolaine spends a large part of this album in the higher octaves, sometimes without much variation. It feels odd to lead with that mild criticism because Marjolaine’s voice, although not “powerful," is certainly enchanting, elegant, and compelling. But as can be seen to a small extent in parts of other songs on Underneath (and to a much greater extent on Wildpath’s 2015 release “Disclosure”), her voice has a lot to add to the music at the lower octaves as well.

In short, Marjolaine's lovely soprano voice is a perfect complement to Underneath’s orchestral underpinnings, but I would have liked to have heard more variation from her on this album.

However, Marjolaine’s enunciation is an enterprise under improvement. As a native English speaker, I bring up this point with the deepest of appreciation that Wildpath’s lyrics are in my tongue. Marjolaine does a good job enunciating when the vocals are not prestissimo. But as the pace of the vocals picks up, her enunciation slips, making it a bit difficult to make out the lyrics at various times.

This, I admit, is a minor gripe, and takes very little away from the album. And this minor deficiency could easily be ameliorated by the release of lyrics for all of this album's songs, a feature you won't get if you buy its electronic version, as I did. (And the lyrics are not readily available on Wildpath's web site or other sources, either.)

Having dealt with the leading vocals, we are unfortunately brought to the harsh vocals employed on two Underneath’s tracks: “The Craft” and “X.” Fortunately, on “The Craft,” they are employed very briefly, seem to fit with the tempo and mood change of the song, and are distorted with a “wa wa” type effect. But on “X,” the harsh vocals are prevalent, even obtrusive.

I’m not actually against harsh vocals in metal, where they fit and where they are done well. But these harsh vocals are not particularly interesting. And worse, they overshadow the lead vocals and simply seem to derail the album for one song before returning to the more symphonic style typical of the rest of the album in “Crystallized.” Others have expressed opposing opinions on this, so I'm willing to concede that this may just be something that strikes me the wrong way in this particular instance.

Regardless, a better approach for “The Craft” (and probably “X”) would have been to bring in a guest vocalist to provide something a little more interesting, like the band did with their immaculate, video-only release, “The Raven,” on which Wildpath procured the services of Constance Amelane, another exceptional soprano whose performance enhanced--or even multiplied--Marjolaine's, rather than detracting from it, as the vocals in “X” do. But again, in the larger scheme of things, this is yet another minor gripe.

In short, if you are a fan of orchestral metal, or female-fronted metal, or songs with delightful and unique tempo and style changes, you’ll enjoy Underneath. I would also suggest picking up the Digipack version. Although the bonus song included in that version, “The Elf, the Man, and the Muse,” is kind of a train wreck (hey, it’s a bonus, so nothing lost), the orchestra-only versions of each track are well-done and make wonderful ambient music.